“Lucius . . . please . . .” I bent my head back, exposing my throat to him, longing to wrap my hands around the back of his neck, shove my fingers up into his long, dark hair, and pull those fangs deep into my veins. The longing was so intense that it was pain, too. Pain and pleasure intermingled in the most inconceivably marvelous way possible . . .
“Oh, Antanasia,” he whispered, voice rough in my ear, moving against me, testing my flesh with those razor-sharp incisors. . . .
Now . . . now . . . please make it now. . . .
“Excuse me! Hello!”
The image shattered. My eyes popped open, and I was back in the Woodrow Wilson gym, under the red and green streamers, bombarded by too many twinkle lights. We stepped apart abruptly, and Lucius raked his hand through his black hair, licking his lips, his fangs gone. He seemed genuinely shaken.
“Have you forgotten me completely, silly?” Faith Crosse was standing next to us, hands on hips, shaking her head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were getting a little too close to your housemate here.” Her tone was light, but she jabbed a finger at me, and there was anger and disbelief in her eyes. Her expression said, very clearly, “There is no way that you abandoned me for that.”
“Lucius and I were just dancing,” I said, voice even, immediately regaining control of myself. I would not panic. I would not be flustered. And I would not act like she was superior to me, or deserved Lucius more. I turned away from Faith. “I have to find Jake,” I told Lucius.
“Wait,” Lucius insisted, reaching for me. But Faith intervened, grabbing his hand.
“I’m sure Jenn wants to get back to her date. And I’m positive you do, too.”
“Jess—”
A scene was brewing. Other couples were starting to stare.
“Thank you for the dance.” I smiled, backing away. “He’s all yours, Faith.”
“Oh, I know that,” she said, her own smile as glitteringly frosty as her dress. She swung into Lucius’s arms. But he was looking at me. I think there was pity in his eyes. Or apology. Maybe he really just couldn’t help himself. Maybe he really was like every teenage boy. Any throat would do in a pinch. Once again, I’d nearly been used—a mistake—just like that day in his apartment. Why was I so powerless to see through him? What hold did he have over me that I fell for him again and again and again?
God, he almost bit my throat. . . .
I met his eyes for a good long time across the dance floor, then I slowly turned my back on Lucius Vladescu and walked, head high and shoulders back, directly through the crowd. People stepped aside, making way for me. I refused to look back. But I hoped he was watching me. Watching me and realizing that he had made a terrible mistake, abandoning me for Faith Crosse.
Pity me? I don’t think so. I pity you, Lucius.
Jake, of course, was nowhere to be found. I wasn’t surprised. I’d completely humiliated us both. Anyone who had paid any attention must have thought Lucius and I were way too close. We were probably just lucky no one had seen his fangs.
I ended up calling my mom for a ride and sat in silence the whole way home, hating vampires. Meddling, heartbreaking, hormone-raging, throat-biting vampires.
Chapter 40
VASILE—
Is this how you planned it all along?
But of course it is.
I was such a fool not to see the scheme in its entirety. Or—I must be honest with myself—perhaps I did know the truth. I just wanted the power so badly, too. . . .
This evening, however, as I placed my fangs against Antanasias throat, the whole future became so clear to me. The scent of her blood was like a truth serum injected into my veins, a cracked mirror into my own hellish self.
You knew all along that an American girl not raised as a vampire would be easily destroyed should she take the throne. The letter I wrote warning you that Jessica was not ready, that she would be vulnerable to attack from power-hungry females . . . those were not revelations to you. You have always prized her weakness. You counted upon it. Oh, god, Vasile, did we count upon it?
I would have married her, thus completing the pact, brought her into our world in Romania, where she would have been almost utterly defenseless, and then abandoned her to her dark destiny. When? How long would it have taken? A year? Less? But by then, the clans would have been legitimately united, and all the power in our hands. In your hands.
Would you have forced fate, Vasile? Would you have taken her down yourself? Secretly, of course, by the gloved hand of one of your minions . . . or would you have tried to force my hand?
With Antanasia hidden high in our castle, who better to attend to her “unfortunate” destruction than the man who shared her bed?
Was that the cruelest thrust, Vasile? To make me feel as I do—and then rip her away? Was that to be your greatest attempt at hardening me? Even for you, that seems too vicious. Too vile. Or perhaps, even after all these years, I underestimate you—which is always a dangerous mistake.
And if I had not done as you directed me—if I had not destroyed her—would you have dispatched me, too, on the grounds of insubordination? Eliminated the inconvenient heir? Who among the Vladescu Elders—and I assume they all know of and applaud your intentions regarding Jessica—who would have blamed you?
Damn. The power you would have wielded then: absolute control over the two greatest vampire clans, with no successor nipping at your heels.
Did you know all along that I would grow to feel so deeply for her?
Is it not appropriately cruel, Vasile, that now to have her, I must not have her?
Set us both free, Vasile. Release Antanasia from me, and re-lease me, as well, if only for a short time. Just a few months. That is all I ask. Just let me be. I want not to think about pacts and power and all that I, like you, am capable of. . . .
Because the most sickeningly thrilling part is, I grudgingly admire your strategy. It gives me a twisted pleasure to see the plan in its entirety. To know that in your place I no doubt would have done the same thing: sacrificed an inconsequential American teenager without second thought, in the interest of lording over so many damn vampire legions. I can almost feel the power in my hands.
But of course, I am who I am: the product of your hand.
Thus I remain, as ever,
Yours,
Always, irrevocably, and irredeemably,
Lucius
P.S. Antanasia may have surprised all of us, Vasile. She really may have. She may have gone down with a hell of a fight. But I will not be the instrument of her inevitable destruction.
P.P.S. In case you have not inferred my meaning from all that I’ve written above, let me be perfectly clear: I choose to defy the pact.
Choice, Vasile . . . is it not a wondrous thing? No wonder the Americans prize it so.
Chapter 41
“JESSICA?”
My eyes popped open. I was in my room, lying in bed in the dark, but someone was there. I jolted straight up, fumbling for the light.
Someone else switched it on. I started to scream, but a firm hand over my mouth stopped me, pushing me back down on my pillow.
“Don’t scream, please,” Lucius whispered as I wriggled beneath him. I lay still, and he removed his hand. “My apologies for frightening you, and the rough treatment. But I needed to speak with you.”
For a moment I was almost thrilled to find him in my room. He is here for me. . . . Then all the events of the evening came rushing back.
Propping myself up again, I clutched my sheets around my chest. “What do you want?” I spat at him, glancing at the clock. “It’s three A.M.!”
“I was unable to sleep after what happened this evening.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, uninvited. He was still wearing his tux, but the tie and jacket were gone and the shirt was untucked and rumpled. “I can’t rest until we talk.”
Lifting the sheet, I glanced down at myself, not sure what I’d worn to sleep in. Am I even decent?
“Everythi
ng is covered,” Lucius reassured me, the smallest smile on his lips. “Your sleep attire reveals nothing but your insistent love of Arabians.”
“You are on such thin ice right now that I can’t believe you even tried a joke,” I said. “You are so out of line!”
Lucius’s face fell. “Indeed. I made the jest only in hopes of pretending that our relationship had not changed as of this evening.”
“You nearly bit me, Lucius. And then you ran off with Faith. I would definitely say things have changed.”
“What I did tonight—what I almost did tonight—it was unforgivable,” he agreed, clearly miserable. “Reprehensible. Not only to come so close to biting you, but in public, too. And with Faith—the woman I was accompanying, for god’s sake—looking on, no less. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t even know how to begin to ask for your forgiveness.”
Everything about that apology stung. Being close to me was “reprehensible”? It was “unforgivable”? He couldn’t imagine “what came over him,” finding himself attracted to a disgusting creature like me. Especially since it might have upset his precious priority, Faith Crosse.
Lucius sighed, correctly interpreting my silence. “You despise me even more than usual, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You left. I suppose Jake was upset.”
“We’ll all live.”
My cold tone seemed to take him aback. “Yes. I suppose we will.” He waited. “I thought you would have more to say.”
“What do you want me to say, Lucius?” I intended to stonewall him, but suddenly it all came spilling out. “You show up on my doorstep, you hound me for months, and when you finally convince me that I’m special—when I finally felt something for you—you turn everything around on me and fall for the same cookie-cutter blond girl every guy likes. You’re such a typical guy—”
“You really did, didn’t you? Begin to feel something for me?” His voice was bittersweet. More bitter than sweet.
“Felt, Lucius. Felt. It was just for a moment,” I said. My anger drained away, settling into a sullen sadness. “It seems like a bad dream now. A ‘mistake,’ to use your word. A terrible mistake.”
Lucius rubbed tired eyes. “Oh, Jessica . . . Do not think you know the whole truth about anything I do or say,” he said cryptically. “Sometimes . . . sometimes I do not even know myself. If I seem inconsistent, it is only me struggling with myself.”
He leaned forward, wringing his hands. “Damn, I’ve made a mess of everything.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
He looked at me with misery in his eyes. “You will never understand how it is to be seduced by the normal.”
I nearly snorted. “You? Normal?”
“Yes, me. Normal.”
“The last thing you’ve ever cared about is being normal.”
“No, Jessica. That is not entirely true. Not lately.” Lucius rose and began pacing my small room, talking softly, almost to himself. “You have no idea what it was like, being raised in solitude. Being raised for a purpose. Your parents, Jessica, they have no agenda for you. You are not their tool. You simply exist to be loved by them. Do you know how foreign that is to me?”
I watched him pace, not sure what to say. Not wanting to interrupt him.
He paused and smiled at me, a sad smile. “I came here and suddenly, there was a whole new world. Our classmates. They’re allowed to be so . . . so frivolous.”
“You hate frivolity.”
“But frivolity is so easy.” The smile faded. “I used to think American teenagers so ridiculously self-absorbed. But it’s addictive, for lack of a better word. I find myself drawn to your world, if only for a brief time. It is like a fleeting holiday to be among you. The first holiday of my life. If one discounts the pressures inherent in fulfilling the pact, there are no expectations for me, beyond making a three-point shot just before the buzzer.”
“Lucius, what are you trying to say?”
He sank back down on the bed. “I find that I am reluctant to give all of that up quite yet.”
“Give all of what up?”
“The dances with the cheap crepe paper. The jeans. The basketball. Being with a young woman without the weight of generations upon my shoulders, watching . . .”
“Faith. You don’t want to give up Faith.”
He reared back. “For a girl who blocked my every attempt at courting, you are suddenly rather proprietary.”
“You’re the one who kept talking about how important it was for us to get married, for crying out loud.”
Lucius raked his fingers through his ebony hair. “If I had bitten you tonight . . . there would have been no turning back. You know that, don’t you? Eternity. Those are the stakes when we are together. Eternity. Are you ready for that? And Jessica, a partnership with me . . . that is something you should not desire. Eternity may come more quickly than you anticipated if you are joined to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
He took my hand, lacing our fingers together. “And that, Jessica Packwood, is precisely why I have set you free.”
“What?”
“I have dissolved the pact.”
“For Faith,” I repeated, pulling my hand away. I hated the jealousy that tore at me like a physical force. “You want to bite Faith. That’s what this is all about.”
Lucius shook his head. “No. I would not bite Faith. Although I am not sure if I am reluctant to foist vampiredom on Faith—or to unleash Faith upon vampiredom.”
I didn’t believe him. I knew he wanted Faith. “Lucius, under the pact, you have to bite me. We’re pledged to each other. If you don’t, you violate the treaty, and the war will start . . .”
“I’m trying to tell you, Jessica. The pact is no longer in effect.”
There was a finality in his voice that frightened me, and my jealousy was replaced by an even sicker, stronger trepidation. “What exactly did you do, Lucius?”
“I have written to the Elders. I have advised them that I will not participate in this ridiculous game anymore.”
“You what?” It came out almost as a shout. “You what?” I repeated more softly.
There was a flicker of fear, but also determination, in Lucius’s eyes. “I have written to my uncle Vasile. I have called off the entire affair.”
“I thought you couldn’t do that.”
“And yet I did it.”
My trepidation intensified to dread, which prickled up the back of my neck. The last thing I’d ever expected to see on Lucius’s face was fear, even the smallest hint, and I knew he was in deep, deep trouble. “What will happen?”
“I don’t know,” Lucius admitted. “But you will be safe. You must not worry. I am the one who made the decision. They will not harm you.” He took my hand again, and I allowed him to re-entangle our fingers. “If it costs me my existence, Antanasia, you will be safe. I owe you that much, for reasons you will never need to know or understand.”
Real terror clutched at me, and I gripped his fingers. “What is going to happen, Lucius?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Lucius . . .” I thought of the terrible scar on his arm. Of his words. “Of course they hit me. Time and again. They were making a warrior. . . .” “Will they punish you?”
He laughed harshly. “Oh, Antanasia. Punishment is hardly the word for what I face at the hands of the Elders.”
“We could try to reason with them . . . ,” I said, knowing I was grasping futilely at straws.
Lucius smiled at me, and there was a tenderness in it. “You have a kind heart, and you are blessed with a sometimes dangerous naïveté. But the world is full of creatures like my poor, doomed Hell’s Belle. And me. Creatures who’ve seen monstrous things and become monsters themselves. Creatures who perhaps should be put down.”
“Stop it, Lucius,” I demanded. “Stop talking like that!”
“It is true, Antanasia. You can’t even conceive of the things in my dreams and schemes
and imaginings . . .”
I swallowed hard. “Is that what you meant on Halloween when you said you could show me ‘not-nice things’?”
Lucius’s fingers tightened around mine. “Oh, no, Antanasia. Not violence against you. No matter what you believe of me—what you recall of me in the future—please believe that in the end, I would not—could not—have hurt you. Perhaps there was a time before I knew you, if you had stood in my path to power . . . but not now.” He hesitated and looked away, and I heard him mutter, “God, I hope not . . .”
“It’s okay, Lucius,” I soothed him. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me.” Still, his admission unnerved me. Was there a time when he could have hurt me? Why did he add that caveat at the end . . . ?
But Lucius wasn’t listening to me. He was staring at the pink walls he so hated. “For my family—for my children—it could have been different. I really have seen a new way here, for all the times I mock this place and its conventions.”
“What if you just stayed here?” I suggested, growing suddenly hopeful. “You could just live like a regular person . . .”
As soon as I blurted the words, I realized how foolish they sounded. Still, Lucius surprised me by saying, “Perhaps for a few more weeks, if I am fortunate.”
“Or longer?”
“No. Not longer. I know where I belong, and it would eventually pull me back.” Lucius disentangled our fingers, standing. “The important thing is, you know that you are liberated from the pact. Absolved. You are free to . . . well . . .” A touch of his mocking laughter crept back into his voice. “Free to do whatever it is that you intend to do with your life. College. Some sort of split-level house in the suburbs. Little fair-haired, agriculturally inclined children running around in the yard. Your fate is your own. I promise you that.”
“What if I don’t want those things anymore?”
“Trust me, Antanasia—Jessica—someday you will look back upon these few months as nothing more than a strange dream. A potential nightmare. And you will be very, very happy that it never came true.”